Monster Truck Show

We took James to a monster truck show on Sunday. I don't think we'll do that again. After ten minutes I was ready to go and James and Irma weren't far behind, but we stuck it out. The biggest problem was the noise. It was way too loud. The show was in an indoor arena with a cement floor and it was just painful when those trucks got going. It was not just loud, no, no. The music they were playing was loud - we couldn't even hear each other over the music, which was annoyingly obnoxious by itself (think loud rock music over a crappy PA system). The trucks were painful. I know loud, I've worked on a flight line, been to plenty of concerts, and been to auto races. The closest loud were the races but being inside just multiplied the sound. I searched in vain for someone selling earplugs - I'd be selling earplugs if it were my show. I ended up crumpling some paper towel up and sticking it in my ears. You couldn't really see it, it was like putting foam plugs in your ear and it saved the day for me. James just put his hands over his ears, he didn't like the paper towel idea. I don't know how Irma took it.

It was a relief when the motorcycles came out to play, they were whisper quiet (in comparison) and you could just barely hear them with the music playing. They had a car jump a ramp and smash into a line of cars. James thought that sounded cool but after it crashed his first words were, "That was dumb." He was right. I just don't get enjoyment out of seeing things destroyed for fun.

That being said, I do like watching the monster truck shows on TV occasionally. These trucks we saw were not those TV trucks, they were not on that level, and if I ever go to one of those shows I will bring earplugs.

I wanted to get some video of the show and was checking the tape to make sure I wouldn't tape over something important (the kids play with it sometimes) and James wanted to go to the bathroom so I walked with the camera. He went to the end of a long bank of stalls and as I walked behind I pushed play to check the tape, camera pointing to the floor. On the screen I see a bathroom stall with a guys feet at the bottom. I checked the camera, it was in 'play', not 'camera' mode and it was indeed pointing down. The guys feet disappeared, he pulled them up. I was just standing there now, trying to figure out what the hell was going on and hoping nobody saw it. I turned it off. I turned it on again and the feet came back down. This was too weird. I hit rewind and found out one of the kids had taped a scene from a movie off the TV. Scared me 'bout half to death. Never bring a camera in the bathroom.